Inner Strength
by YoungBoho
Summary: Mimi tries to get clean. Some serious RogMimi fluff, oneshot


**Disclaimer**: It's not mine. Thank you Jonathan Larson.

**Author's Note**: Just a little bit of a POV experiment… I think I like it, your thoughts are most appreciated.

**Inner Strength**

Roger never yelled when he was angry. He didn't scream, or throw things. He wasn't one to accuse or blame, he simply retreated into himself, speaking more through his body language and action rather than loud, pointless, speech. All emotion was conveyed through his gaze. You could always tell exactly how he was feeling whenever he looked at you, whether it was despair, joy, hope, regret or gratitude. It was all there like an open book for those who knew him. His quiet, intelligent gaze was the perfect reflection of certain inner thoughts. Over time, you learned that the only thing that mattered was what you saw there in his eyes.

That's why it hurts so much when he catches you with the needle. It's already shoved halfway into your arm when he crawls inside your room from the fire escape outside your window. Even through the first sensations of the high, you can still feel that cold drip of guilt when he looks at you. The pain, and disappointment, and betrayal, and vulnerability shine through his tears and you wish that there was some way to disappear. He pauses for a moment, staring at you with those hurt eyes of his before walking away without speaking a word, he didn't have to.

You had promised him that you were going to quit. You knew how much the drugs took from Roger, how they had brought everything he thought he knew crashing down around him. They destroyed his life, and were quickly taking over yours. He promised to help you, to guide you through the pain of want and withdrawal that mere hours of being without smack would inevitably bring. You agreed because as long as Roger is there, you can do anything.

You meant to quit too. It was the best thing for you. Giving up the drugs would save you, save your relationship, save your money. And Roger would be proud of you. He wouldn't look at you with shame anymore, there would only be pride in those emerald gems from now on.

It just hurt so deep. Quitting wasn't worth the physical cost withdrawal would have on your body. You didn't have the strength.

Up until this morning you had been satisfying yourself at least three times a day. Every few hours a needle would inject its fiery liquid deep into your arm, carrying you to nowhere. You felt no pain, you felt no joy, you felt nothing. The feeling was addictive, dangerously so.

And then it was gone, and you could feel everything. The months of empty emotions rushed forward, setting your blood on fire. It raced through you, raising your temperature while it chilled you to the core. Your body spasmed with the want to forget, desperate for the relief of ignorance. Sweat had melted your beauty and the constant nausea destroyed any of the comfort you used to find in food.

Time slipped by and it only grew worse. As the hours passed, you fell deeper into this unbearable realm of agony where the only way out was to betray Roger and fill your blood with the pleasant poison concealed in the used syringe.

You weren't as strong as Roger had thought. It only took a few hours before you snuck outside to trade the little money left in your pocket for the small bag of white powder. The symptoms released their cruel grip as soon as the smack was slipped into your possession. You didn't even feel guilty when the dirty needle's contents were released into your already tainted blood.

You barely even noticed when Roger came down to check on you. He stood there for a moment, waiting for some sort of response, while you sat on your bed, content in your daze. When he realized what you had done, his face crumpled, disappointment flashed in his eyes, and he just retreated back upstairs to his waiting guitar, leaving you completely alone. Who knows when you'll see him again.

The only appropriate reaction you can think of is to squeeze a little more of the powder into your body, blocking out any potential emotions that were strong enough to reach the cloudy surface. The warm arms of ignorance take you into their embrace, and you find yourself lost inside the drug's power.

You're not Mimi anymore, you're just the embodiment of nothing.

Words floated down through the thin floorboards. You could hear them, but didn't bother trying to understand.

"She fucking lied to me Mark!"

"Roger-"

"She promised me that she was done with that shit, I was going to help her through everything,"

At this point it felt right to go deeper inside the high. You could hear the instability in Roger's quiet voice and it was almost enough to make you feel something. He wasn't shouting, he never shouted. It was the voice of quiet disappointment that a parent uses when talking to their misbehaving child.

"It hasn't even been 24 hours and she's lying there higher than I've ever seen her,"

"Roger, you knew this was going to happen,"

"Yeah but, it's too soon. I thought I meant more to her than going a few hours without drugs,"

"Don't try to make this about you,"

"I'm not-"

"Yes Roger, you are. This is Mimi's battle to fight. She has to choose to do this for herself, you can't do it for her,"

"She just doesn't care,"

"How many times did you use before you quit for good?" Mark's voice cut off, leaving a heavy silence that lasted several seconds. Sounds of blood pounding in your veins as it carried the drug throughout your system, pounded in your empty ear drums.

"Yeah well, I didn't go out and use the day after I promised to quit," Roger's voice had regained some of its strength. "I made an effort,"

"Mimi needs your help Roger, you have to stick by her right now. If I ran off every time you got high you would still be stuck on that shit. She needs someone to help get her through this…"

The conversation continued but you were suddenly too exhausted to care. Your eyelids pulled themselves shut and everything else was lost to you.

* * *

Roger was in the bed with you when you woke up sober several hours later. His warm presence was just enough to keep the want for more drug at bay for a few minutes longer. A strong arm was wrapped around you and his chest was pressed tightly against your shriveled back. His soft breath stroked the back of your neck with a warm, comforting, regularity that managed to warm you even in the frigid spring morning. Your hand dropped to his, fingers tangling themselves in the fine hair of his forearm as you buried yourself in his embrace. Moments like these were forever lost when you were high.

Still, this wasn't as pleasant as it should be, as it was _meant_ to be. You should enjoy the feeling of Roger's body wrapped around yours to the point where you couldn't tell who belonged to which limb. But you weren't. The arm around your waist was rigid as steel, allowing no room for movement. It felt almost as if he was holding you prisoner, keeping you here with him because if you weren't there you had to be out getting more drugs.

"Morning baby," his soothing voice grazes your ear. It didn't rattle inside your head like every other noise after you've gone a few hours without a hit.

You roll over to face him, careful not to disentangle yourself from his interwoven embrace. "Hi,"

"How're you feeling?"

"I guess I'm okay, right now anyway," you shrug as well as you can when buried beneath blankets, pillows and Roger.

His hand swings around and brushes some of the stray hair out of your face, fingertips brushing against your cheekbones in an apologetic caress.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," he tells you. "I shouldn't have left like that-"

"Don't,"

"What?"

"Don't apologize," you push his hand away. "I'm the one that fucked up,"

"You didn't fuck up Mimi, you just slipped," his fingers return to your face. It feels nice, like he's meant to be there stroking your cheeks, encouraging their rosy color to return. "I wasn't here to help you and I should have been,"

"I should have been stronger…"

"Forget about it Meems, it's done, you can't change it,"

"I'm sorry," your eyes close in shame.

Roger cups your chin and pulls your eyes open with his own powerful stare. "It's not your fault,"

"I just didn't know it was going to hurt this bad…" tears creep into your eyes as the memory of yesterday's agony brings on a fresh torrent of pain.

Roger pulls you even closer to his warm body, wrapping both arms around you in the tightest embrace your current position allows.

"I know baby, I know," he whispers, replacing the chills that were beginning to race through you with a gentle, calming pressure. "I'm going to help you with this, we're in it together now,"

The pain is starting again and you cling tighter to Roger. He is your anchor, your link to sanity. You have no choice but to believe him, and hope that he is strong enough to carry you through the darkness ahead because you've already failed. He holds you against him, as if he can already feel what your body is starting to go through.

"I got you," he whispers. "Just hang in there,"

"Please Roger… it hurts so much," the familiar pain of yesterday seems to have tripled overnight and hit all at once. You become dizzy even though you're lying down. The vertigo takes hold of your senses and jumbles them until they're completely unrecognizable. You want to throw up, but you haven't eaten in at least a couple days, so your body is forced to settle for painful dry heaves that wrench deep inside your gut. Your mind is still trying to grasp how this could have come on so quickly.

"Roger…" you grunt between gags.

He wraps a thick, wool blanket around your now shivering body and holds you from behind, doing everything he can think of to keep you warm. He knows without explanation that you're suddenly freezing.

It shouldn't be this bad. You've gone longer than this without a hit before and never had anything that resembled this fit. You ache all over, burning with the want for more. The heroin calls to you, a sweet beckon promising instant relief. You have never wanted anything so badly before.

"Just one more… _please_ Roger,"

"No more Mimi, no more," his chin rests on your shoulder, and his legs frame your waist as you close your eyes and try to trick yourself into being high. You visualize the needle pushing inside your skin and depositing a limitless amount of the abrasive liquid, the only medicine strong enough to take away this pain.

It doesn't work.

Roger rocks you back and forth, oblivious to how your vision swims together. "It's almost over," he says quietly. "Just hang on, you're almost done,"

You want to tell him that it's nowhere near over, that it's only just begun. You want to yell and scream and shout his idiocy to anyone who cared enough to listen. The pain would never be over. He was subjecting you to a mental mind fuck greater than anything you knew existed. You want to hit Roger, hurt him, break him, force him to relive his own six month hell, anything to find some relief for yourself.

But you don't. You have trust him instead. His eyes hold concern and fear, but no doubt and no lies. Roger believes that you can do this.

"Hold me," you whisper, and he does.

The instant you focus on him, the way he's holding you so tightly and so gently, the soft words he whispers to distract you from your pain, the symptoms disappear as quickly as they had come, leaving you feeling empty and exhausted.

You know this is far from over. The pain will return, probably worse than before. You will cry and beg and plead for some sort of release from its powerful grip, even death. The withdrawal will encompass your world, pushing you past your limits, past your breaking points. It will gut you, leaving you with only a few faint memories of what you used to be. But when the pain does come back, Roger will be here to hold you, and that makes all the difference in the world.

**Reviews are Love!**


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